East from the middle of the 10th century. Up to comparatively recent times a priceless collection of classical manuscripts was preserved in the libraries; many of them were destroyed during the War of Greek Independence (1821–1829) by the Turks, who employed the parchments for the manufacture of cartridges; others fell a prey to the neglect or vandalism of the monks, who, it is said, used the material as bait in fishing; others have been sold to visitors, and a considerable number have been removed to Moscow and Paris. The library of Simopetra was destroyed by fire in 1891, and that of St Paul in 1905. There is now little hope of any important discovery of classical manuscripts. The codices remaining in the libraries are for the most part theological and ecclesiastical works. Of the Greek manuscripts, numbering about 11,000, 6618 have been catalogued by Professor Spyridion Lambros of Athens; his work, however, does not include the MSS. in some of the sketae, or those in the libraries of Laura and Vatopedi, of which catalogues (hitherto unpublished) have been prepared by resident monks. The canonic MSS. only of Vatopedi and Laura have been catalogued by Benessevich in the supplement to vol. ix. of the Bizantiyskiy Vremennik (St Petersburg, 1904). The Slavonic and Georgian MSS. have not been catalogued. Apart from the illuminated MSS., the mural paintings, the mosaics, and the goldsmith’s work of Mount Athos are of infinite interest to the student of Byzantine art. The frescoes in general date from the 15th or 16th century: some are attributed by the monks to Panselinos, “the Raphael of Byzantine painting,” who apparently flourished in the time of the Palaeologi. Most of them have been indifferently restored by local artists, who follow mechanically a kind of hieratic tradition, the principles of which are embodied in a work of iconography by the monk Dionysius, said to have been a pupil of Panselinos. The same spirit of conservatism is manifest in the architecture of the churches, which are all of the medieval Byzantine type. Some of the monasteries were seriously damaged by an earthquake in 1905.
Authorities.—R. N. C. Curzon, Visits to Monasteries in the Levant (London, 1849); J. P. Fallmerayer, Fragmenta aus dem Orient (Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1845); V. Langlois, Le Mont Athos et ses monastères, with a complete bibliography (Paris, 1867); Duchesne and Bayet, Mémoirs sur une mission en Macédoine et au Mont Athos (Paris, 1876); Texier and Pullan, Byzantine Architecture (London, 1864); H. Brockhaus, Die Kunst in den Athosklöstern (Leipzig, 1891); A. Riley, Athos, or the Mountain of the Monks (London, 1887); S. Lambros, Catalogue of the Greek Manuscripts on Mount Athos (2 vols., Cambridge, 1895 and 1900); M. I. Gedeon, ὁ Ἄθως (Constantinople, 1885); P. Meyer, “Beiträge zur Kenntniss der neueren Geschichte und des gegenwärtigen Zustandes der Athosklöster,” in Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 1890; Die Haupturkunden für die Geschichte der Athosklöster (Leipzig, 1894); G. Millet, J. Pargoire and L. Petit, Recueil des inscriptions chrétiennes de l’Athos (Paris, 1904); H. Gelzer, Vom Heiligen Berge und aus Makedonien (Leipzig, 1904); K. Vlachu (Blachos), Ἡ Χερσόνησος τοῦ Ἁγίου Ὄρους (Athens, 1903); G. Smurnakes, Τὸ Ἅγιον Ὄρος Ἀρχαιολογία ὄρους Ἀθῶ, (Athens, 1904). (J. D. B.)
ATHY (pronounced Athý), a market-town of Co. Kildare, Ireland, in the south parliamentary division, 45 m. S.W. of Dublin on a branch of the Great Southern & Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 3599. It is intersected by the river Barrow, which is here crossed by a bridge of five arches. The crossing of the river here was guarded and disputed from the earliest times, and the name of the town is derived from a king of Munster killed here in the 2nd century. There are picturesque remains of Woodstock Castle of the 12th or 13th century, and White Castle built in 1506, and rebuilt in 1575 by a member of the family whose name it bears, and still occupied. Both were erected to defend the ford of the Barrow. There are also an old town gate, and an ancient cemetery with slight monastic remains. Previous to the Union Athy returned two members to the Irish parliament. The trade, chiefly in grain, is aided by excellent water communication, by a branch of the Grand Canal to Dublin, and by the river Barrow, navigable from here to Waterford harbour.
ATINA, the name of three ancient towns of Italy.
1. A town (mod. Àtena) of Lucania, upon the Via Popillia, 7 m. N. of Tegianum, towards which an ancient road leads, in the valley of the river now known as Diano. Its ancient importance is vouched for by its walls of rough cyclopean work, which may have had a total extent of some 2 m. (see G. Patroni in Notizie degli scavi, 1897, 112; 1901, 498). The date of these walls has not as yet been ascertained, recent excavations, which led to the discovery of a few tombs in which the earliest objects showing Greek influence may go back to the 7th century B.C., not having produced any decisive evidence on the point. To the Roman period belong the remains of an amphitheatre and numerous inscriptions.
2. A town (mod. Atina) of the Volsci, 12 m. N. of Casinum, and about 14 m. E. of Arpinum, on a hill 1607 ft. above sea-level. The walls, of carefully worked polygonal blocks of stone, are still preserved in parts, and the modern town does not fill the whole area which they enclose. Cicero speaks of it as a prosperous country town, which had not as yet fallen into the hands of large proprietors; and inscriptions show that under the empire it was still flourishing. One of these last is a boundary stone relating to the assignation of lands in the time of the Gracchi, of which six other examples have been found in Campania and Lucania.
3. A town of the Veneti, mentioned by Pliny, H. N. iii. 131.
ATITLÁN, or Santiago de Atitlán, a town in the department of Sololá, Guatemala, on the southern shore of Lake Atitlán. Pop. (1905) about 9000, almost all Indians. Cotton-spinning is the chief industry. Lake Atitlán is 24 m. long and 10 m. broad, with 64 m. circumference. It occupies a crater more than 1000 ft. deep and about 4700 ft. above sea-level. The peaks of the Guatemala Cordillera rise round it, culminating near its southern end in the volcanoes of San Pedro (7000 ft.) and Atitlán (11,719 ft.). Although the lake is fed by many small mountain torrents, it has no visible outlet, but probably communicates by an underground channel with one of the rivers which drain the Cordillera. Mineral springs abound in the neighbourhood. The town of Sololá (q.v.) is near the north shore of the lake.
ATKINSON, EDWARD (1827–1905), American economist, was born at Brookline, Massachusetts, on the 10th of February 1827. For many years he was engaged in managing various business enterprises, and became, in 1877, president of the Boston Manufacturers’ Mutual Fire Insurance Company, a post which he held till his death. He was a strong controversialist and a prolific writer on such economic subjects as banking, railways, cotton manufacture, the tariff and free trade, and the money question. He was appointed in 1887 a special commissioner to report upon the status of bimetallism in Europe. He also made a special study of mill construction and fire prevention, and invented an improved cooking apparatus, called the “Aladdin oven.” He was an active supporter of anti-imperialism. He died at Boston on the 11th of December 1905.
His principal works were Right Methods of Preventing Fires in Mills (1881); Distribution of Products (1885); Industrial Progress of the Nation (1889); Taxation and Work (1892); Science of Nutrition (10th ed., 1898).
ATKINSON, SIR HARRY ALBERT (1831–1892), British colonial statesman, prime minister and speaker of the legislative council, New Zealand, was born at Chester in 1831, and in 1855 emigrated to Taranaki, New Zealand, where he became a farmer. In 1860 the Waitara war broke out, and from its outset Atkinson, who had been selected as a captain of the New Plymouth Volunteers, distinguished himself by his contempt for appearances and tradition, and by the practical skill, energy and courage which he showed in leading his Forest Rangers in the tiresome and lingering bush warfare of the next five years. For this work he was made a major of militia, and thanked by the government. Elected to the house of representatives in 1863, he joined Sir Frederick Weld’s ministry at the end of November 1864 as minister of defence, and, during eleven months of office, was identified with the well-known “self-reliance” policy, a proposal to dispense with imperial regulars, and meet the Maori with colonials only. Parliament accepted this principle, but turned out the Weld ministry for other reasons. For four years Atkinson was out of parliament; in October 1873 he re-entered it, and a year later became minister of lands under Sir Julius Vogel.
